The Voice of Mirza Xazar

SUMGAYIT JOURNAL: WITH MORE JOBS, MORE SMOG

Khadija Ismayilova

10/27/07

Amidst a hydrocarbon-fueled economic boom, the factories in the Azerbaijani city of Sumgayit, a former capital of the Soviet Union’s chemical industry, are back at work again, with questionable environmental results.

Built in the 1950s to the north of Baku, Sumgayit in Soviet days produced a cocktail of toxic chemicals ranging from lindane to (until 1981) DDT. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, Sumgayit became little more than an industrial cemetery. Tens of thousands of its inhabitants left.

Today, the city’s official population stands at 270, 000 and jobs are beginning to return: between 2003 and 2006, some 25,000 new positions were created, according to government statistics. Most of the work centers on the manufacture of chemical products for use in oil refineries, pipes and polyester.

But concurrent with the return of jobs, there has been a reappearance of "gazovka," or smog.

Twenty years ago, it would have passed unnoticed, one 55-year-old Sumgayit resident claims. "[W]e did not know the difference," commented Arifa Aliyeva. "But after the factories stopped working in the early years of independence, we saw the difference between polluted and clean air."

Considerable debate now surrounds how "clean" Sumgayit’s air has actually become, and whether sufficient safeguards are in place to prevent a return to Soviet smog levels.

For its part, the government maintains that current emissions are a fraction of rates from the late Soviet era. The Ministry of the Environment reports that over 11,000 tons of waste from natural gas emissions were released into the atmosphere in 2006 compared with just over 74,003 tons in 1990. Production of solid wastes has dropped from 165,144 tons in 1990 to 2,198 in 2006. Meanwhile, the government claims that wastewater emissions by the city of Sumgayit into the Caspian Sea have decreased nearly three-fold, to 76.9 million cubic meters in 2006.

"The situation is much, much better now," asserted ministry spokesperson Irada Ibrahimova.

Not all pollution activists agree. In 2006, the Blacksmith Institute, a New York City-based environmental watchdog, listed Sumgayit among the 10 most polluted sites in the world, including Ukraine’s Chernobyl and Russia’s Norilsk. The government says that the data used is 10 years out of date.

Azerbaijani environmental watchdog groups agree that Blacksmith’s data is old, but add that more recent information and statistics are largely inaccurate or incomplete. Serious problems still exist, they say.

Arif Islamzade, director of the Center for Environmental Rehabilitation of Sumgayit, one of the more serious health problems is connected to the use in local factories of sodium hydroxide, a material used in petroleum production. Islamzade claims that high quantities of metallic elemental mercury are used to produce the sodium hydroxide, and remain in waste released into the atmosphere. Mercury vapor can have severe effects on the respiratory system.

Islamzade claimed that local factories have stopped using a government-run disposal unit for sodium hydroxide since they cannot afford the usage fees charged. Ministry officials said that they had no such information.

Part of the problem is that most Soviet-era factories still in operation have been allowed to continue functioning without official certification that their operations meet environmental regulations. "They were approved when they started working back in Soviet times," said Gahraman Khalilov, head of the Ministry of the Environment’s industrial department. "We certify only new production sites."

Residents name Sumgayit’s Aluminum and Composite Design factories among the chief polluters. Composite Design, a new factory, is the main supplier of plastic pipes for a new water pipeline project between Baku and Gabala in northeastern Azerbaijan. The Aluminum Factory has existed since Soviet times.

Gazanfar Aliyev, head of the Environment Ministry department that oversees Sumgayit, says that repeated warnings to the aluminum plant about its emissions have gone unheeded. The Composite Design production line, however, is "clean," he claims.

Aluminum factory officials could not be reached for comment.

Identifying the location of land waste dumps from the Soviet past only adds to the problem. Ten houses have recently gone up on land between Sumgayit and Baku deemed uninhabitable by the Environment Ministry. Ministry officials state that they had notified city authorities to stop the land sales, but to no avail.

But most of Sumgayit’s inhabitants, however, do not understand the potential threat posed by the factories, Islamzade adds. The younger generation "is more interested in having jobs than in the environment," he says, adding that older residents’ criticism "does not go beyond conversations in coffee shops."

To domestic and international environmental activists, the red flag for Sumgayit’s pollution problems has long been its infant mortality rate, the highest in the country. Azerbaijan’s State Statistics Committee puts the rate at 20.8 children per 1,000 live births, compared with the national rate of 9.8.

Data from the United Nations shows an even higher death rate: 74 children per 1,000 live births in 2000, the latest year for which data has been released, according to the organization.

Yet environment ministry spokesperson Ibrahimova argues that Sumgayit’s high infant mortality rate is "not necessarily" the result of pollution. It is up to health officials to find out the real cause, she asserts. Meanwhile, Sumgayit residents are holding on. "We understand that the country is developing and that now the situation with unemployment is not as bad as it used to be," commented 70-year-old retired schoolteacher Zuleykha Gasimova. "But I hope they will also think about people’s health and do something about pollution."

Editor’s Note: Khadija Ismayilova is a freelance reporter based in Baku.

(www.eurasianet.org)

SUMGAYIT JOURNAL: WITH MORE JOBS, MORE SMOG

Khadija Ismayilova

10/27/07

Amidst a hydrocarbon-fueled economic boom, the factories in the Azerbaijani city of Sumgayit, a former capital of the Soviet Union’s chemical industry, are back at work again, with questionable environmental results.

Built in the 1950s to the north of Baku, Sumgayit in Soviet days produced a cocktail of toxic chemicals ranging from lindane to (until 1981) DDT. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, Sumgayit became little more than an industrial cemetery. Tens of thousands of its inhabitants left.

Today, the city’s official population stands at 270, 000 and jobs are beginning to return: between 2003 and 2006, some 25,000 new positions were created, according to government statistics. Most of the work centers on the manufacture of chemical products for use in oil refineries, pipes and polyester.

But concurrent with the return of jobs, there has been a reappearance of "gazovka," or smog.

Twenty years ago, it would have passed unnoticed, one 55-year-old Sumgayit resident claims. "[W]e did not know the difference," commented Arifa Aliyeva. "But after the factories stopped working in the early years of independence, we saw the difference between polluted and clean air."

Considerable debate now surrounds how "clean" Sumgayit’s air has actually become, and whether sufficient safeguards are in place to prevent a return to Soviet smog levels.

For its part, the government maintains that current emissions are a fraction of rates from the late Soviet era. The Ministry of the Environment reports that over 11,000 tons of waste from natural gas emissions were released into the atmosphere in 2006 compared with just over 74,003 tons in 1990. Production of solid wastes has dropped from 165,144 tons in 1990 to 2,198 in 2006. Meanwhile, the government claims that wastewater emissions by the city of Sumgayit into the Caspian Sea have decreased nearly three-fold, to 76.9 million cubic meters in 2006.

"The situation is much, much better now," asserted ministry spokesperson Irada Ibrahimova.

Not all pollution activists agree. In 2006, the Blacksmith Institute, a New York City-based environmental watchdog, listed Sumgayit among the 10 most polluted sites in the world, including Ukraine’s Chernobyl and Russia’s Norilsk. The government says that the data used is 10 years out of date.

Azerbaijani environmental watchdog groups agree that Blacksmith’s data is old, but add that more recent information and statistics are largely inaccurate or incomplete. Serious problems still exist, they say.

Arif Islamzade, director of the Center for Environmental Rehabilitation of Sumgayit, one of the more serious health problems is connected to the use in local factories of sodium hydroxide, a material used in petroleum production. Islamzade claims that high quantities of metallic elemental mercury are used to produce the sodium hydroxide, and remain in waste released into the atmosphere. Mercury vapor can have severe effects on the respiratory system.

Islamzade claimed that local factories have stopped using a government-run disposal unit for sodium hydroxide since they cannot afford the usage fees charged. Ministry officials said that they had no such information.

Part of the problem is that most Soviet-era factories still in operation have been allowed to continue functioning without official certification that their operations meet environmental regulations. "They were approved when they started working back in Soviet times," said Gahraman Khalilov, head of the Ministry of the Environment’s industrial department. "We certify only new production sites."

Residents name Sumgayit’s Aluminum and Composite Design factories among the chief polluters. Composite Design, a new factory, is the main supplier of plastic pipes for a new water pipeline project between Baku and Gabala in northeastern Azerbaijan. The Aluminum Factory has existed since Soviet times.

Gazanfar Aliyev, head of the Environment Ministry department that oversees Sumgayit, says that repeated warnings to the aluminum plant about its emissions have gone unheeded. The Composite Design production line, however, is "clean," he claims.

Aluminum factory officials could not be reached for comment.

Identifying the location of land waste dumps from the Soviet past only adds to the problem. Ten houses have recently gone up on land between Sumgayit and Baku deemed uninhabitable by the Environment Ministry. Ministry officials state that they had notified city authorities to stop the land sales, but to no avail.

But most of Sumgayit’s inhabitants, however, do not understand the potential threat posed by the factories, Islamzade adds. The younger generation "is more interested in having jobs than in the environment," he says, adding that older residents’ criticism "does not go beyond conversations in coffee shops."

To domestic and international environmental activists, the red flag for Sumgayit’s pollution problems has long been its infant mortality rate, the highest in the country. Azerbaijan’s State Statistics Committee puts the rate at 20.8 children per 1,000 live births, compared with the national rate of 9.8.

Data from the United Nations shows an even higher death rate: 74 children per 1,000 live births in 2000, the latest year for which data has been released, according to the organization.

Yet environment ministry spokesperson Ibrahimova argues that Sumgayit’s high infant mortality rate is "not necessarily" the result of pollution. It is up to health officials to find out the real cause, she asserts. Meanwhile, Sumgayit residents are holding on. "We understand that the country is developing and that now the situation with unemployment is not as bad as it used to be," commented 70-year-old retired schoolteacher Zuleykha Gasimova. "But I hope they will also think about people’s health and do something about pollution."

Editor’s Note: Khadija Ismayilova is a freelance reporter based in Baku.

(www.eurasianet.org)

AZERBAIJAN: ARRESTS BOLSTER MEDIA CONCERNS
Mina Muradova: 11/13/07

These are not good times to be a pro-opposition editor in Azerbaijan. In the past two weeks, two editors at pro-opposition newspapers have received jail terms in criminal cases, and a third is facing possible prison time following his arrest on assault charges. The actions have set off a wave of criticism by ordinary Azerbaijanis as well as local and international observers.

On November 10, opposition newspaper Azadlig (Freedom) editor-in-chief Ganimet Zahid was formally charged with hooliganism and inflicting minor bodily harm on a man who was accompanying a woman who claims Zahid insulted her. If convicted on both charges, Zahid could face a three-year minimum prison sentence.

A local media watchdog organization, the Institute for Reporters' Freedom and Safety (IRFS), believes that the incident was a provocation designed to engineer trouble for the opposition journalist. “This is not the first time that Zahid, or his paper have been targeted by such ploys,” IRFS Chairman Emin Huseynov said. “Azadlig newspaper journalists, including Zahid himself, have been the targets of physical attacks, kidnappings, bogus arrests and so on.”

In the run-up to Azerbaijan’s 2005 parliamentary elections, the opposition editor was kidnapped, beaten and photographed nude. IRFS maintains that the November 7 incident is similar in its nature. Zahid said that he was walking to Azadlig’s offices in Baku’s Azerbaijan Publishing House when he was approached by an unknown young woman who began shouting at him that he had insulted and sworn at her. A young man with an athletic build then reportedly approached Zahid, and began beating the editor in retaliation for the woman’s allegations. Zahid sustained minor injuries from the incident.

Representatives of the Western diplomatic community in Baku have condemned Zahid’s arrest. On November 12, US Ambassador Anne E. Derse noted that “in recent months” signs of an apparent “campaign . . . against opposition journalists” have been noted. She stressed that a free press is an important factor for democracy. “The campaign against the press may adversely affect democratic development,” local news agencies reported Derse as saying. IRFS’ Huseynov believes that such incidents will only increase as Azerbaijan’s presidential campaign gathers momentum.

The government has so far eschewed comment on the arrest. On November 12, however, Ali Ahmadov, the governing Yeni Azerbaijan Party’s executive secretary, told reporters that support for “free media . . . does not mean that journalists can consider themselves above the law,” the news agency Novosti-Azerbaijan reported.

The October 30 sentencing of another journalist to an eight-and-a-half-year prison term by the Azerbaijani Court for Serious Crimes has helped fuel concerns about media rights and freedom of expression. Eynulla Fatullayev, the editor-in-chief of Realny Azerbaijan and Gundelik Azerbaijan, received the jail time for alleged tax evasion, inciting ethnic and religious hatred and a charge of terrorism. He was also fined 242,522 manats (about $285,300).

The European Union issued a statement on November 8 that characterized the sentence as disproportionate. The case against Fatullayev began after Realny Azerbaijan published an article that alleged that Azerbaijani troops had been responsible in part for a massacre of ethnic Azeris during the war with Armenia over the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. “Cases of this kind run counter to Azerbaijan's commitment to the freedoms of expression and opinion,” the statement charged, underlining that both issues are “essential” for Azerbaijan’s participation in the EU’s European Neighborhood Policy, “as well as for the development of the partnership between Azerbaijan and the European Union.” While Fatullayev’s is the higher-profile case, another opposition editor has also recently been given jail time. On November 6, Ideal newspaper editor-in-chief Nazim Quliyev was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison on charges of defamation. He was found guilty of defamation and insults following a lawsuit filed by Natiq Jafarov, the head of the gas distribution department for Baku's Binaqadi District.

Human rights activists, opposition politicians and pro-opposition journalists are trying to band together in order to combat what they contend is government pressure. On November 12, a working group was set up to advocate for Zahid’s release, saying that “the opposition and media representatives must unify their efforts to fight for freedom of speech.” The collective is preparing an appeal to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev about Zahid’s arrest, while two opposition members of parliament -- Igbal Agazade, leader of the Umid (Hope) Party, and Panah Huseynov, leader of the People's Party -- will petition the General Prosecutor’s Office to set Zahid free on bail.

The head of one pro-opposition news agency argues that parliament itself needs to become more pro-active on the freedom-of-speech issue, adding that the country could benefit from legislation that clearly defines the parameters of defamation. “There is a need to establish a group for the protection of freedom of speech since the situation with arrests of journalists and repression of media from the authorities in Azerbaijan has worsened,” Turan Director Mehman Aliyev commented to reporters.

In October, officials filed 50 lawsuits against newspapers and journalists on charges of slander, according to the Media Rights Institute, run by the international media support organization Internews. Courts imposed fines worth 250,300 manats (about $294,133) on media in connection with the cases, the Institute reported.

For now, though, the government maintains that these court actions simply reflect the equitable application of the law, with no special privileges given to any group of people.

"Freedom of speech and press is incompatible with insulting and libelling other people,” Ali Hasanov, head of the presidential administration’s public policy department, commented to Turan on November 9. “No one arrests or persecutes journalists in Azerbaijan. Journalists must know that no one is given a right to insult the dignity and honor of those other people.”

Hasanov, a close advisor to President Aliyev, has argued that despite appeals from the international community, “we cannot allow chaos.” In the current situation, he added, without elaboration, criminal liability for defamation cannot be repealed. "The right of one person cannot be violated at the expense of another," he said.

Editor’s Note: Mina Muradova is a freelance reporter in Baku.

(www.eurasianet.org)